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Global trend in aquatic ecosystem research from 1992 to 2011

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Abstract

Aquatic ecosystems are ecologically important, but continuously threatened by a growing number of human induced changes. This study evaluates the research trends of “aquatic ecosystem” between 1992 and 2011 in journals of all subject categories of the science citation index and social sciences citation index. The analyzed parameters include publication output, cited publication, document type, language, distributions of journal, author, country and institutes, and analysis of author keywords and keywords plus. The results showed that over the past two decades, there was a consistent growth in publication output with involvement of increasing number of countries and institutions, and North America was still the leading region in the subject. Classification of the top 30 author keywords indicated that more research attentions were paid to the study on aquatic organism, water environment and aquatic ecosystem condition. Aquatic ecosystem, water quality, and fish were the top three most frequently used author keywords. In addition, owing to its significant impact on aquatic ecosystems, climate change has been placed crucial emphasis recently. Aquatic ecosystem research trend was shifting from water environment to aquatic ecosystem wide issues.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking University, No. 5 Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100871, People’s Republic of China

    Jingqiu Liao & Yi Huang

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  1. Jingqiu Liao
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  2. Yi Huang
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Correspondence to Jingqiu Liao.

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Liao, J., Huang, Y. Global trend in aquatic ecosystem research from 1992 to 2011. Scientometrics 98, 1203–1219 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-013-1071-z

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